Tanya froze. Her eyes flickered with surprise, the kind one tries to hide but fails miserably. She hadn't expected the girl to see through her so easily.
'How did she notice?' Tanya wondered, her heartbeat quickening in her chest.
'How did she figure out that I'm here to test her... to see if she cries, gets angry, or acts impulsively? How does she already know that I'm here to observe whether she's the emotional type who creates scenes?'
But Adeline had noticed, and that irritated Tanya even more.
If Adeline was calm, composed, steady, and difficult to shake, then Tanya knew she had only one path: become unreasonable.
Create trouble. Push her until she finally broke. Then, when Adeline was exhausted, Tanya would offer a "solution"... leaving Alex.
That would be her doorway in.
She thought about the way she had almost made Alex look at her... how close she had been to capturing his attention... until Adeline showed up like an unexpected thorn.
